Where Does Software Money Go: Duplicate Licenses and "Dead" Software Assets

My name is Danila Trusov, I am the product director of "Inferit ITMan". In this article, I want to discuss where such "invisible" overspending comes from and why without transparent accounting of IT assets, they can go unnoticed for years.

Where Extra Expenses Come From

According to market observations, a significant portion of software costs is not associated with the development of the IT landscape, but with the lack of transparency in accounting. In conditions of distributed teams, rapid project launches, and regular transfer of equipment between departments, companies gradually lose track of what software is installed where and who is actually using it.

The reasons for overspending are generally systemic. Departments purchase identical solutions independently of each other, employees continue to be listed as software users after changing roles or leaving the company, and licenses acquired "for the future" remain unused for years. If there is no single source of up-to-date data on software assets, such situations can remain unnoticed until the next purchase or external audit.

Why Formal Accounting Doesn't Work

In many companies, IT asset accounting exists formally: there are spreadsheets, reports, and sometimes even specialized systems. The problem is that this data often does not reflect the real picture of software usage. They are updated irregularly, do not account for changes in user roles, and do not show the actual load on licenses.

As a result, the business may simultaneously pay for unused licenses and purchase new ones simply due to a lack of confidence that already acquired resources can be safely redistributed. Without transparent accounting, such decisions are made "with a margin," and a margin almost always means additional costs.

Financial Consequences That Accumulate Over the Years

The effect of duplicate licenses and unused software rarely manifests all at once. More often, it is a gradual "erosion" of the budget: regular support payments, urgent purchases during audits, difficulties in planning expenses for new initiatives.

When IT budgets are under constant pressure, and IT departments are increasingly required to justify costs and return on investment, the absence of up-to-date data becomes a direct source of financial losses. In fact, the company is paying for resources that are not working towards its business objectives.

What order brings

The practice of Russian organizations shows that after organizing software accounting, it is possible to identify a significant volume of ineffective spending. In one project at a company with an infrastructure of over a thousand workstations, centralized inventory revealed duplicate and unused licenses, allowing for a reduction in software costs by approximately 12% — without cutting functionality and without affecting operational processes.

The key value here lies not so much in savings per se, but in the ability to make financially justified decisions. When the IT department and the business see which software is actually being used, it becomes possible to eliminate unnecessary purchases, redistribute licenses, and direct the freed-up funds towards priority tasks.

Accounting as a financial tool

In the context of rising ownership costs of IT infrastructure, accounting and transparency of IT assets cease to be merely technical tasks. They become a full-fledged financial tool that directly impacts cost manageability.

Monitoring licenses and software allows for shifting software expenses from the category of uncontrolled and hard-to-explain items to a predictable and measurable resource. Ultimately, this gives the IT department the ability to speak with the business in terms of numbers and efficiency.